Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Palestine: Zionist colonists stage new terror attacks while the Apartheid Army watches

Armed settlers attack mosque, burn cars in West Bank village

Israeli settlers raided Burqa, a village near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, on 10 October. In addition to vandalizing the village mosque, three cars were also set ablaze in front of their owners’ homes.

This attack and others appear to be in response to the recent killings of Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. A mere fifty meters down the street, the perpetrators spray-painted graffiti on the side of the mosque. “The redemption of Zion loves Tomer Hazan,” it read, referring to an Israeli soldier who was killed in the city of Qalqiliya last month.

The attack followed one in the Jalazone refugee camp, also in the Ramallah area, on 27 September. After setting two cars on fire in the camp, Israeli settlers left graffiti proclaiming that the act was revenge for the killing of an Israeli soldier in Hebron (“Settlers set two cars on fire near Ramallah,” Ma’an News Agency, 27 September 2013).

Despite the illegality of their presence under international law, Israeli settlers face virtually no consequences for their routine violence against Palestinians. Across the West Bank, these settlers have targeted Palestinian holy sites, farmers, buildings and land with increasing frequency.

“They came around 1 o’clock am and wrote on the mosque. Then they set our neighbor’s car on fire before they came to our garage and set my truck and our car on fire,” said Abu Ali Nitham, a farmer who lives at the edge of Burqa.